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by njohnson41
3768 days ago
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Of course, knowing that extremists are usually engineers only helps you if you have a known extremist and want to guess his profession. Extremists are a pretty small group, and engineers a much larger one, so I'd have to assume that extremism is still very rare among engineers, meaning knowing whether someone is an engineer or not is completely useless for predicting if they're an extremist. But hopefully, you've got a STEM degree, and can figure that fact out out yourself ;) |
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Sadly I bet someone in some ostensibly serious conversation will suggest increasing attention based on major (the person making the suggestion will have no understanding of statistics).
I don't think it's totally useless information as it informs us about the type of person who joins such groups. It might be useful in terms of tailoring counter-extremist propaganda. If the most susceptible to recruitment are of group X you want to make your counteroffer tailored to group X.
I can't think of a good example for transnational groups but it could be that after removing a government (or whatever you call ISIS) prioritizing reconstruction/aid projects that need local engineers is an effective way to reduce the likelihood that insurgencies start at all.
Also from the summary, if you're afraid of communist extremists you need to find work for English and International Affairs majors and you're really in trouble :)